Preface
I owe so much to my parents Odet and Mihran Yarmayan and to my wife Hilda Dikranuhi nothing would have been realized without them!
This book is for you...
Arsen Yarman
As someone who was penned books on the history of institutions, city histories and written culture, I have to admit that embarking on an in-depth study of Ottoman goldsmithery and jewelry such as this was surprising. Upon my endeavor’s striking shift towards in this direction, I started to think and while authoring this book took frequent retrospective visits to discover the roots of my interest in the matter. It was known that the Yarmayans, a large family in Tokat (a city in Anatolia) were active in numerous fields of artisanship such as sericulture, calico and kerchief manufacturing and milling. Another branch of the family was in copper and ironworking; as a matter of fact, my grandfather and my father worked in this field in Istanbul. I had witnessed and contributed to the process of transforming their craft into industry and had lived through all its adversities from a young age. The fact that a branch of my family was in copper and ironworking might have played a role in my embarking on such an endeavor; or maybe I can come up with a convincing explanation for this journey.
When I look back at the course of writing the book, I notice that I have approached Ottoman goldsmithery and jewelry from the perspectives of history, beauty and labor and that, using a more precise wording, I saw the objects in the book as a combination of these three elements. I have to admit to have seen this combination in the three souvenirs I inherited from my family: namely, my grandfather’s pocket watch, my grandmother’s wedding ring and my family’s mess kit.
The pocket watch of my grandfather Harutiun Yarmayan.
My grandfather’s watch was pointing at a time I did not witness, but which was passed on through some recollections, definitely as a time of happiness, but also of relentless torments. The desire to be able to stop that watch, even to turn the time back so as to become part of those lives was intense. I frequently looked at my grandmother Armenuhi Yarmayan’s wedding ring crafted in Tokat and representing two joined hands and would feel my hand in her palms. That wedding ring was the product of devotion, trust and compassion which halted the passage of time and even went beyond. The other object that belonged to my family but came into my possession at a relatively later date was a mess kit of wrought copper manufactured in Tokat in 1896 belonging to Setrag Yarmayan.
It is impossible to stop the passage of time and to live it retrospectively; however, one can bear witness to the past through souvenirs and objects symbolizing those remembrances. In my eyes, my grandfather’s pocket watch, my grandmother’s wedding ring and Setrag Yarmayan’s mess kit were also items that preserve history, beauty and labor in themselves, beyond being family heirloom. Should I penetrate deeper into their crafting process, their importance in peoples’ lives and their stories, I believed I would more firmly be able to be part of that history. I would thus look into my grandfather’s time, grasp my grandmother’s hand more heartily and better comprehend Setrag’s efforts and my family’s struggle for life in this small but commercially important city in the middle of Anatolia.
When in 1968 I decided to study archeology at the University of Padua I could see, albeit not as clearly as today, that I was concerned with history and was trying to piece together the past. I now understand better that through concrete and known items, I wanted to prove what I had read in history books, what I had heard from my family elders and the fragmentary stories about the past that reached my ear. By studying archeology, my aim was to uncover the pieces of a civilization one cannot see with one’s eyes, but the cultural effects of which one feels, its stones, its pillars, and its cornerstones, to relieve them from the dust and the weight piled upon them through ages, to reveal the zeitgeist of their times and to see the traces of the past in our present.
Had my archeology studies not been left unfinished through challenges in our family and business life, I would probably have embarked upon this historical quest a long time ago. Yet, most of the time imperatives prevent one from chasing one’s passions, or, as in my case, slow the pursuit, postpone it for a while. Being forced by my father to discontinue my archeology studies and to become a mechanical engineer, thus getting a start in business life at a young age, prevented me from engaging in a comprehensive and complete study on the subject, but could not cool my interest in history and my readings in this direction. Despite my hectic business life, I succeeded in keeping my curiosity alive with regard to Armenian history, and especially the social history, cultural and artistic activities of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. When I consider the abundance of publications available today and the ease in reaching these, I cannot but remember how difficult it was, when I was young to find sources dealing with that subject.
From the first months of my retirement in the 2000s, I was able to allocate more time to my research concerning history, Armenian art and written culture as well as institutional history. My books, i.e., Osmanlı Sağlık Hizmetlerinde Ermeniler ve Surp Pırgiç Ermeni Hastanesi Tarihi, [Armenians in Ottoman Health Services and the History of Surp Pırgitch Armenian Hospital-2001]; Sivas 1877 (2008); Palu-Harput 1878, Çarsancak, Çemişgezek, Çapakçur, Erzincan, Hizan ve Civar Bölgeler [Palu-Harput 1878, Çarsancak, Çemişgezek, Çapakçur, Erzincan, Hizan and Adjacent Regions-2010]; Ermeni Yazılı Kültürü (2012); Sultan II. Mahmud ve Kazaz Artin Amira [Sultan Mahmud II and Kazaz Artin Amira-2013] and Ermeni Etıbba Cemiyeti (1912-1922) – Osmanlı’da Tıptan Siyasete Bir Kurum [Society of Armenian Physicians (1912-1922)-An Institution from Medicine to Politics in the Ottoman Empire-2014] are the products of my accelerated efforts in this period. Of course, I could not embark, as in my early twenties, on a long and gruelling subject like archeology; nevertheless, the above books were the signs of my desire to re-establish a strong link with history. I interpret my work on Armenian goldsmithery and jewelry as the product of my passion for Ottoman and Armenian history and deep inside consider it as my devotion to the dreams of Arsen, the young university student. My research may not be an effort to unearth and raise ruined walls or columns; but I now see objects which are the concrete display of historical labor, I bring their stories to completion, blow away their dust and thus allow them to shine again while finding the fingerprints of the masters who gave them shape. I believe this to be one way of accompanying the soul and pay tribute to the talent of those artists who believed in the existence of a truth in the mineral or the precious stone, who fought with this tough material to extract an element of beauty.
A study on goldsmithery and jewelry will inevitably have to consider the supply of precious metals, their becoming commercial merchandise, their adventure among wealthy and influential people and, with the advent of the modern state, their function as presents in a diplomatic context. This is why we brought to light, thanks to archival documents, the supply of precious metals in the Ottoman Empire, the institutions that process them, the sarrafs (moneylenders/bankers) and precious stone merchants acting as intermediaries, the institutions manufacturing jewelry or the workshops and firms working for these. During my studies on Osmanlı Sağlık Hizmetlerinde Ermeniler ve Surp Pırgiç Ermeni Hastanesi Tarihi and Sultan II. Mahmud ve Kazaz Artin, I touched upon the amiras who in a way can be considered Armenian “nobles.” When starting to draft the book, I did not think that my previous work on amiras would play such a central role, but I soon realized that Armenian amiras and sarrafs were intertwined and that a substantial part of their fortune was based on long-distance trade, whereby one of the important elements was undoubtedly the commerce of precious stones directly concerning goldsmiths and lapidaries. Considered all together, it was not difficult to conclude that Armenian amiras and sarrafs were closely related to goldsmiths and that sarrafs were even directly involved in this field.
Setrag Yarmayan’s mess kit (1896).
I knew that the fortune of Serpos Amira (Seghpos Amira Yerevantsi), one of the brightest names of the early period of the amiras, was based on the saffron trade he conducted between Tokat and India, on the velour (kemha) and Gilan silk he imported from Persia; I was however not aware of him also being an especially important precious stone merchant. My reading and the documents on the precious stone trade between the Ottoman Empire and India or Persia allowed me to better grasp how Serpos Amira’s activities in this field were determining his status within the Armenian community. Thus, I learned that the khan he had built for European merchants in Karaköy in Istanbul known as Serpuş Khan today is still standing albeit in ruins and that the mural painting representing Galileo was seen as a proof of Serpos Amira’s patronage for intellectuals visiting the Ottoman world, besides the protection he extended to merchants and diplomats.1 Similarly, realizing that Yacoub Amira Hovhannessian, Serpos Amira’s greatest rival was also one of the most important precious stone traders of Istanbul and that during the zenith of his power no precious stone could be sold unbeknownst to him, allowed me to better understand the source and the extent of the amiras’ fortunes and influence and to piece together historical facts. The fortunes these two amiras made through their efficiency in overseas trade and the powerful commercial network they possessed was comparable to that of the great European bankers such as the Welsers or the Fuggers.
The most important aspect of our study devoted to Armenian goldsmithery and jewelry under the Ottomans is undoubtedly this historical character. As someone to have personally heard from many people including academics and artists, from industrialists and merchants, the bright place Armenians occupy in the field of jewelry during both the Ottoman and Republican periods, I was saddened by the absence of a book containing these historical records. The writing of the book took seven years and the important part thereof, or approximately four years, was rooted in the sadness caused by the lack of a comprehensive study in this field. The fact that some of the goldsmithery books which touched very lightly upon the role of Armenians in goldsmithery were limited to a few examples from the 19th and 20th centuries strengthened my resolve to unearth the activities of the master goldsmiths of the earlier centuries, together with the pertaining documents. This resolve was at the root of the desire to match the names of the master goldsmiths from before the 18th century with their work. I therefore admit to having attached special importance to the seals and signatures of many Armenian goldsmiths on Ottoman documents. The documents on the Armenian goldsmith Abro who is recorded to have died in Crete in the middle of the 17th century; on the coin engraver Sarkis Murad who around the same period was working in the Aleppo mint; on the goldsmith Asfadur of Diyarbekir who crafted swords and precious goods for the sultan and the grand viziers; on the goldsmith Bedros who undertook some renewal work on the throne of Murad III; on the goldsmith Aslan who manufactured precious items for Valide Gülnûş Sultan, Mustafa II’s mother – all these not only prove the activities of the Armenian goldsmiths during the said period, but also show that these activities were not only limited to Istanbul and that they extended from east to west, throughout the various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
I cannot claim to have come across difficulties in finding documents on the activities of Armenian goldsmiths in the Ottoman archives. On the contrary, the greatest difficulty was in preserving the integrity of the book and in sorting out archival documents while limiting the ones I had chosen. I therefore have to say that the documents in the book constitute only a part of those we found in the archives and used.
The book’s character of underlining the history of Armenian goldsmithery is derived from archival documentation, historical texts, books and personal archives conserved by master goldsmiths. At the beginning however, my work had three axis – history, labor and aesthetics. One important part of this three-axis-approach necessitated the determination of the labor invested, the time spent, the precious metals or stones used for the work of goldsmithery or jewelry. Karl Marx had already pointed out, in his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, that processes that determined the value of a jewel usually seen as the symbol of power and wealth were so complex that this worth could not be reduced to only its usage value and the labor invested in it: “We cannot say that it is a commodity by looking at a diamond. Once it fulfills an aesthetic or mechanic role as usage value on the bosom of a coquette or in the hands of a glass cutter, it becomes a diamond, not a commodity.”
1. Toros Azadyan (Agn yev Agntsik, p. 53), cited by Yaycıoğlu, Ali, “Perdenin Arkasındakiler, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Sarraflar ve Finans Ağları Üzerine bir Deneme” [Those behind the Curtain, an Essay on Sarrafs and Finance Networks in the Ottoman Empire], Journal of Turkish Studies – Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları, v. 52, December 2019.
There are many myths and stories created around diamonds and precious stones which command prices incomparable to their usage values. In A Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad the Sailor saw diamond rocs of human height in the Valley of the Diamonds. However, it was almost impossible to collect the pieces of diamond which broke off these rocs, because they were protected by giant black snakes which could swallow elephants. The procedure of the merchants to collect the diamonds was also Sinbad’s way out of the valley: “Unable to descend into this inaccessible valley, the searchers for diamonds would apply a bizarre method to come by the precious stones. They would cut the sheep into four pieces and throw them on top of the diamonds, so as to have them stuck on the flesh. At this juncture Spirits and large eagles would come, would alight on the chunks of meat and fang the meat so as to take it up to their chicks in the nests on high rocks and feed them. The diamond searchers would lunge at the birds, shouting and gesticulating with their hands and arms, scaring the eagles away and forcing them to abandon the meat chunks. They would then besiege the abandoned meat and collect the pieces of diamond.”2
The fact that the story of Sinbad the Sailor points at mutton for the price of the diamonds, is undoubtedly a sign showing how difficult and dangerous it was to come by the precious stones. The story reminds us of an Indian saying that underlines the important price to be paid in modern times for possessing and keeping diamonds and precious stones. This saying alluding to rivalry, to the struggle for power and influence and to jealousy was directed at the Koh-i Noor found in India: “He who possesses the Koh-i Noor will be the owner of the world but will also meet all the misfortunes. Only God or a woman can wear it without being punished.”
There is no doubt that Sinbad’s dangerous story is situated somewhere between myth and reality; however, from a report dated 1788 by Heidenstam, the Swedish ambassador to Istanbul, we understand that the possession by the Armenian merchant Apraham Sofialian of the Nur-el Ayn (Light of the Eye), one of the world’s most important diamonds could be read like a modern detective story where the merchant puts his own life in danger. Sinbad’s story and that of Sofialian overlap and the diamond is again mixed in flesh. To avoid being ransacked by robbers, Sofialian put on cameleer’s garments and hid the Nur-el Ayn in a pastrami pouch and succeeded in taking it to Istanbul.3
These words that touch upon the fact that diamonds and other precious stones can claim someone’s life can also be interpreted as a warning directed at their monetary value and the wealth and splendor they represent and which can mislead and divert people. Hence, as indicated by Edward Erlich, some diamonds were so precious that “One could carry in his pocket the ransom to free a king.”4 Erlich’s words remind us of Cardinal Mazarin whose fortune stemmed from diamonds and ready cash and was comparable to that of the Bank of Amsterdam, while bringing to one’s mind the famous diamond set Les Mazarins the Cardinal presented to King Louis XIV. On the other hand, some diamonds were so valuable that there were times when even a king or a queen were unable to add them to their personal treasure: In 1782 William Hornby, the owner of the famous Hornby diamond wanted to sell the jewel which was brought to London from India, but seeing that such a piece would not find a buyer in London, went to show it to the Russian tsaritsa Catherine the Great. Since the diamond was still in his possession when he died in 1803, we understand that his attempts were not crowned with success.
The value of the diamond is also the main reason for it finding a suitable place in palaces. Nevertheless, in relation with goldsmithery and jewelry, I do not agree with limiting the value of a diamond to solely the cost of gold and precious metal or to the palace possessing it, which constitutes the second element of our work’s axis, namely the labor factor. The value of this precious stone is above all a process which begins with its extraction and, like the most beautiful flowers blossoming in a swamp, gold and diamond are extracted most of the time covered with dust and dirt. Just as it is expressed in a Yiddish proverb: “Its father is dirt, but gold believes it is noble.”
Like all precious stones, gold harbors many contrasts. It is found in dirt, in dust, in stream beds, deep under the ground or in deserts; it is one of the most concrete riches of the world, but it creates the most courageous, the most ambitious, the darkest dreams of mankind. Like the Roman poet Horatius, many people assume this contrast as a part of its nature: “Gold will either be slave or master.”
3. Jamgocyan, Onnik, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Sarraflık, Rumlar, Museviler, Frenkler, Ermeniler 1650-1850 (Les Banquiers des Sultans – Juifs, Francs, Grecs et Arméniens de la haute finance: Constantinople, 1650-1850), trans. Erol Üyepazarcı, YKY, 2017, p. 73.
4. Erlich, Edward, Diamond Deposits: Origin, Exploration, and History of Discovery, Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration, 2002.
But who is the slave and the master of gold or diamonds? If the master is the person who adds the diamond to his treasure and puts it on display, the one who takes pleasure in feeling the precious stones in his palm or presents it to people he considers his equals, then we can count the rulers of the Mughal, Persian and Ottoman empires, the kings and queens of the West, Serpos Amira, Yacoub Hovhannessian and Apraham Sofialian as its master. In that sense, gold and diamond are the image and symbol of power or wealth. On the other hand, the power and wealth everybody wants to possess is something that changes hands and is difficult to preserve. Just like the continuous tension of possessing and preserving power, gold will gradually turn its owner into its own slave: “To have gold is to be in fear, and to want it to be sorrow.”5 To better understand the above, it will suffice to think of the fear of the Mughal emperor exposed to Nadir Shah’s assault and plunder, the sad fate Yacoub Hovhannessian paid with his own life or Sofialian who disguised as a cameleer to dissimulate possessing the Nur-el Ayn and protect it from the robbers’ pillage. Gold and diamonds forced their owner to adopt the role of a simple cameleer.
Isn’t all this the beginning of the history of gold and diamonds? Those who are the first to extract these from below the ground, from riverbeds, those who own them for a fleeting moment gone in the blink of an eye are simple people and, most of the time, slaves. As historian Braudel points out, “in the division of work on the world scale, mining is the score of the most wretched, the poorest of humanity.”6 French traveler and diamond merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier who as a buyer in 1652 visited a diamond mine named Raolconda, one of the most important centers for the diamond trade of the period, five days away from Golconda in the south of India, witnessed that everything there was organized, “in a wonderful manner, aimed towards the interests of the ruler and the merchants, even towards the comfort of the buyers.” However, miners were “miserable, naked, subject to mistreatment and under the suspicion of fraud.”7 In this respect, it is not surprising that slave trade was intense in places where gold was extracted or was traded. When we think that tons of rocks, dust and dirt have to be processed to obtain only one carat of diamond, we can grasp the important patience and labor required to extract gold and diamonds. The regions where diamonds and precious metals were mined present very concrete examples. The precious stone mining which initially was limited to India would shift to Latin America with the discovery of the Brazilian mines towards the mid-1700s and then to South America after the mid-19th century. The fact that these continents became the scenes of a large slave trade only confirms our claim.
To better understand how the precious metals and stones are not the property of the people living in the mining regions, but become the property of faraway powerful countries and influential companies, it would be sufficient to look at Bolivia, to Potosi, a place only the interested and inquisitive will know of today. This example of wealth inspiring the saying “to be worth as Potosi” (this sentence always reminds me of Serpos Amira and the term “as rich as Serpos” coined for him) was so full of silver mines that even the horseshoes were made of silver. Potosi was established in the middle of the high Andean deserts, at an altitude of 4,000 meters, had 120,000 inhabitants in 1573 and was more populous than Seville, Madrid, Rome and Paris. Unfortunately, this wealth was mobilized for Europe’s development, not Potosi’s. “Commanders and friars, horsemen with arms and priests with books have made appointments in Potosi to rip off and remove America’s silver.”8
The deposit was initially discovered by the Incan emperor Huayna Capac; however, with the stroke of the first pickaxes, a rumble coming from the depths of the mine resembling the clap of thunder told them that this wealth would not change their fortune and that it wouldn’t even belong to them: Galeano says that the thunder told the locals in Quechuan, “these riches are not for you; God reserved them for people who will come from very far.” Braudel indicates that the world of mines and the process here “are the precursors of the industrial world and its proletariat,” and points at the same fact. The diamond searchers in Brazil are adventurers whose tracks are difficult to follow and who assume great risks; but the profits of the adventures they embark upon will invariably go to the rulers in Lisbon or the diamond sales tax farmers and, “should one mine show a trace of independence (like in Medieval Europe), it is certain that it will sooner or later be repossessed by commercial chains.”9
While running away from the mine, the locals called it “Potosi,” meaning “rumble and explosion.” The prophecy did not take long to realize and the people from far away did not keep Potosi waiting for long. The town offered all its wealth to the Spaniards and in return received the coat of arms from Emperor Carlos V with the inscription, “I am Potosi, the treasure of the earth, the king of the mountain and the source of riches kings yearn for and cannot reach.” The end of the story is very clear; at the close of the 18th century, Potosi had given all the silver in its veins to Europe and was left with a coat of arms in return: “Potosi is the town to have given the most while possessing the least.”10
Shakespeare indicates in Henry VI that precious metals and stones make way for both wealth and destruction and that even a royal crown with hundreds of diamonds does not bring only wealth and magnificence:
My crown is in my heart, not in my head,
Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones.
Nor to be seen; my crown is called contentment;
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.11
We see a similar approach to that of Shakespeare who points at the enslaving character of crowns and jewels in Lady Montagu’s words, wife of Edward Wortley Montagu who in 1716 was appointed as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire: “I would prefer freedom to chains of diamond.”
It is clear that the magnificence, the dazzling luminescence of the precious metals and stones render invisible most of the labor during their extraction, processing and trading. I have always felt troubled when the story of a famous jewel is told through the palaces or the dynasties owning or hosting them. The story of a jewel cannot be limited to the identity or the fortune of the person possessing it. With the exception of the famous, following the complete story of how jewels were found and extracted is inconceivable most of the time; it is however possible to concretize and underline the tale of the labor spent on crafting and giving it its charming form and its glitter; in other words, the story of the artisan. We have therefore taken up this task, which was not as simple as it seemed and have succeeded, through the oral history sessions we conducted and family histories we compiled, to present detailed information on the lives and works of many goldsmiths.
I had decided, already at the initial stages of my research, to highlight labor, the second axis of the book and to recount the stories of those masters who cut the diamonds, shape the gold and give it forms beyond human imagination. From an economic angle, the scarcity of the precious metals and of stones required for the crafting of jewelry and products of goldsmithery turns these into a source of wealth. As determined by David Ricardo, they attain a distinctive value depending on their scarcity, on the labor required for their supply and the capital invested in the mines producing them. Although they have truly little use when compared to air and water, they have a value which permits to them to be bartered a very wide variety of goods. Galilei Galileo touches upon the relation between qualifying goods as valuable or worthless and their abundance and scarcity, without omitting to mention the strangeness of this relation: Although people were finding a diamond beautiful for being as clear as water, they were not willing to exchange a single diamond with ten barrels of water.
Here another element with a value not comparable to its economic use, the nature of the labor shaping the diamond comes into the picture. The diamond cutters, those who process the stones (simplers, engravers, setters, carvers, etc.) assign their own aesthetic criteria and qualified labor upon these gems. Looking at a jewel, it is only through this labor that we see not just the precious metal or the stone, but also the craftsman’s efforts. With this book, I aimed at making visible the labor imprisoned in the jewelry evoking admiration, and uncovering the talent of the masters.
I should also mention a feature crystallizing especially in the last two chapters of the book. The chapters before these are focusing on the history of the precious metals and stones, on the process and ways of crafting a commercial product. The basic method for bringing these into the open were historical documents, Ottoman archives and historical works on the subject, whereas the last two chapters are concentrating on the bright jewelry products of the 19th and 20th centuries; there is no doubt that the process had effects and marks reaching to our very day. Particularly in the last chapter, I focused on determining the activities, production and styles of those Armenian goldsmiths who from the Ottoman period reached the Republic and even the present and in so doing, I changed my way of working. We are able to learn about the activities of these goldsmiths from archival documents and various memoirs; on the other hand, it was also known that some family members were keeping up with the profession or had preserved information and documents on the activities of their ancestors. Thus, there was a possibility to conduct oral history sessions, to reach the archives of the master goldsmiths and jewelers and to touch upon their personal worlds not attainable through official documents and records.
I have to admit that those were the chapters which emotionally were more challenging for me. Since childhood, I remember watching with awe those masters who performed their jobs with great care, who identified themselves with what they did. I always saw it as a privilege to witness the struggle between the master and the material. Here, I intentionally use the word “struggle,” because of its softness, gold is a material difficult to shape and therefore it needs to be toughened. On the other hand, a diamond is excessively hard, it resists efforts to shape it and is easily breakable by a careless intervention or unrestrained power. Therefore, a goldsmith wrestling with the matter would sometime force it to submission, and sometime have to compromise. In all jewels and jewelry products we see the traces of this basic struggle, but in real chef d’oeuvres we witness something far beyond, when the fight between the master and the matter form some sort of a union.
The drawings which we include in our book and which belong to the works of the great masters of jewelry both show the course of crafting a jewel and how difficult a process the union we mentioned is. To be backed by mastership, talent and tradition is extremely important; however, each master aiming to craft a unique jewel will always start his work with apprehension and tension. One event narrated in the book is an interesting example thereof. An Armenian goldsmith who worked to prepare the sultan’s order was so consumed with his work, so intensely focused on creating a brilliant jewel and so unequivocally cut off from the outside world that he did not notice the hair that fell on the diamond and thought he had cracked the gem.
I therefore see the drawings of the Armenian masters as valuable sources displaying which stages a master’s work has traversed before reaching its final form, or even showing the master’s regrets, and believe that the reader will follow the craftsman’s handwork in the documents, the drawings and in the final form, and feel the diminishing light of his eyes, his hesitations and his triumphs. I trust that thanks to the drawings, the aesthetic factor composing the third axis of the book comes even more to the forefront. Above all, drawings enable the concretization of the understanding of beauty, the cultural conception and the first thoughts emerging in the mind of a master goldsmith. Just like the artist who claims to chip away the excess stone to reveal the statue inside, the master goldsmith does away with the excess mineral, softens or hardens when needed, and carves it to bring to light an artistic product. Thanks to the drawings recording all these stages, it is easier to realize that jewels are not only valuable luxury consumer goods and to grasp the aesthetic-cultural factors that lie behind them, while gaining an idea about the cultural particulars and tastes of the people of those times.
The moment he begins to work, the master goldsmith is thought to be alone with a metal or a stone not very willing to talk to him. However, even if not discernable to an outsider looking in, a goldsmith’s workshop is very crowded at beginning; even if long dead, the master of the goldsmith and the tradition the goldsmith inherited from his master will be present in the workshop. Here, we might be touching upon a factor which differentiates the master form the artist in its classical meaning and shapes his artistic side. I would like to underline that crafting jewels almost always entails a master-apprentice relationship and that therefore it makes workplace rituals, rules and solidarity extremely important.
This relates to the wish to have the precious metals and stones forming a great source of wealth under the continuous regulation and control of the state authority, without, however, being limited by it. The “Ganon Garkatrutyants Joğovo Vosgeriç Arhesdavorats, Hokatsyal i Beds Haverjagan Khağağutyan yev Miyapanagan Siro” (The Charter for the Eternal Unity and Solidarity of the Guild of Artisan Goldsmiths) published in 1898 indicates that many dimensions of the solidarity and professional relations between goldsmiths are designed to apply to their entire personal lives. This is why I attached great importance to include in the book the translation of the thirty-four articles of this charter as published in the magazine called Luma (Contribution). When examined, the articles of the charter show that beyond being a professional organization and regulating the relations between its members, the goldsmiths’ guild also provided a strong network of solidarity. It would therefore be useful to study the charter including articles related not only to those times when goldsmiths were able to work and practice their profession, but also provisions almost reminiscent of social security measures for old age, illness and death. The charter of the goldsmiths’ guild with its seal depicting a crowned snake features articles devoted to caution, to establishing a relation between professional and religious rules and to providing its members with ethical standards, starting with apprenticeship. To indicate that as such the charter suggests an approach beyond our actual social solidarity standards would not be an exaggeration. If it were in my power, I would advise all the readers to start with this section, so as to understand the unity of the goldsmiths, their solidarity and their state of mind.
Besides this charter and thanks to the oral history sessions we conducted in order to relay the history of the Armenian goldsmith families and to the drawings and pictures from the masters’ personal archives, I believe I have brought to the fore the labor and aesthetics dimension of goldsmithery, dimensions I attach great importance to. There is nothing surprising in a jewel evoking power, fortune, wealth and temptation at once; however, its value, which is to say its authenticity cannot be understood without dealing with the aesthetic concept it represents, the labor applied for its crafting, and the method which makes it unique and differentiate it from any other jewel. It is obvious that the jewel drawings we provide here cannot fully enlighten all these questions; however, they are valuable since they carry some important clues on the matter.
Photos of the activities of many goldsmiths in their workshops, and of their products starting with the very first stage and reaching their final form have made it easier to reach that goal. Through these photos, it has been possible to display how the master became integrated with his work, to see the distance he traveled by looking at the differences between drawings and products and to show the change within time. I want to mention only one example, the pictures of Misak Oskanyan in the last part of our book. In one of the photos, we see ten-year-old Oskanyan in the Zincirli Khan in the Grand Bazaar, enjoying a break together with the other apprentices. In another picture taken approximately a year later, this young apprentice is seen in his master Jirayr Şadyan’s workshop, performing blow-welding, which works with breath.
What do these pictures tell us? I frequently asked myself this question while preparing the book. I found answers which sometimes did not satisfy me. Above all, the pictures made me think of the apprentice’s first steps into a challenging life, of the weight he shouldered at this young age. From another angle, and whatever the working conditions, we can see this photo as the proof of the joy and energy in the apprentices, as well as the solidarity of being together. Under still another perspective, the same picture can be considered as a document on the methods used approximately seventy-five years ago in one of the principal goldsmith workshops of the Grand Bazaar and may remind one of the distance covered by technology during the past period. The process of writing the book was also the time for finding satisfactory answers to such questions.
I would therefore expect the readers to ask themselves these questions especially when looking at the drawings we used and the pictures of the interiors of the workshops and of the toolboxes.
On the other hand, I would also feel it a duty to warn the reader about a mistake I sometimes made. One should not think that these pictures are only meant to show how primitive the working conditions of goldsmiths were. Such a thinking would reduce goldsmithery and jewelry only to a technical level and to see it as a simple extension of technology, whereas all important and successful works of crafting jewels show the taste of their time and the aesthetic measures of the masters who create them while echoing the spiritual power and energy those masters used for reflecting these onto metal or stone. This inner power enables us to observe with awe the works of a master goldsmith who does not even possess a sophisticated toolbox. Besides, today we frequently notice that most of the objects produced by the use of extremely sophisticated technologies do not have a share of this inner power, that they do not show any particularity setting them apart from the works of the same period and that they give the impression of being the product of an assembly line.
We very often come across jewels which, despite all the flashy material and the advanced technology, do not have an inner life. Each time I see such products, I think that a piece of jewelry does not only reflect the desire of its wealthy owner, but also the freedom and the longing for self-realization in the soul of the master who created it. I relive this feeling each time I look at the works of Zare Goboyan, one of the last diamond masters of the Grand Bazaar and of the other masters I mention in the book and see the brooches which seem to be taking wings and flying. This aspiration for flying, this longing for freedom might be an indication of the joy of those apprentice goldsmiths and their masters, of their desire to free the motionless thing in the stone and giving it wings. Those masters who work up sweats in khans, in stone-walled workshops have, with their imaginations, freed the bird ready to take wings from the stone and, in a way, justified the words of English poet and novelist George Eliot: “These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of.” The American writer Emerson underlined this aspect of gold in similar terms: “The desire for gold is not for gold itself. It is for the means of freedom and good.”
When looking at a jewel, we also see the imagination and the free spirit of the goldsmith who revealed the movement within the metal or the stone. The goldsmith’s freedom is two-fold: He frees the frozen and motionless looking metal or stone and he maintains his own freedom against the person ordering a valuable jewel. The attitude of the master of carvers and precious stone expert Mgrditch Benderian against an Ottoman pasha treating him rudely is a striking example of this freedom. Notwithstanding the reputation he gained with his inscriptions on emeralds, rubies, rock crystal and agate and despite the fact that his works were sought after by Ottoman grandees like Grand vizier Fuat Pasha as well as Abbas Hilmi Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, his secluded life and his last years lived in want might have been caused by this love of freedom in his soul.
In order to emphasize the labor-aesthetics axis to which I attach great importance and which I believe has been neglected in a large part of books on jewelry, I was bound to on the stories of the goldsmiths and the sketches shedding light on the ideas before production. This approach provided an important advantage in discovering the authentic aspects of the brilliant Armenian goldsmiths of the Ottoman and early Republic eras. While providing information on the Armenian goldsmiths and jewelers and the works they crafted, my basic yardstick has been the professional continuity of goldsmith families who transitioned from the Ottoman era to the Republic.
The reason for continuity making itself felt in every part of the book stems from the lasting role played by and the weight of the Armenian sarrafs, goldsmiths and jewelers in importing, at least as of the 16th century, precious stones from all over the world to the Ottoman Empire and in introducing the Indian and Persian goldsmithery styles to this land. It is impossible to grasp the level reached by Armenian goldsmiths between the 18th and 20th centuries without pointing at this continuity. I therefore especially intended to underline this tradition the goldsmith families inherited from their past. To follow the history of Armenian goldsmiths of the Ottoman period until the early 20th century without experiencing an important break could only have been possible through this continuity.
Although I would have very much liked to, I could not include in the book such world-renowned and brilliant contemporary artists as Avedis Kendir, Sevan Bıçakçı and Arman Suciyan who lacked a family tradition. I would really have loved to have my manuscript include the Santa Maria of approximately one meter Avedis Kendir over in almost ten years with gold, silver and precious stones, to show how it revives history with its extraordinary craftmanship, the materials used and its style – in fact, a 1/100-scale extremely detailed replica (the model of the ship is indeed so meticulous in its detail that the number of nails used for the model is exactly the same as those on ship itself) of Christopher Columbus’; the model was first exhibited the Archivo de Indias Museum in Seville, Spain, and then in various other cities. This was also the reason for not attributing a place to people whose fame went beyond Turkey’s boundaries like Sevan Bıçakçı and Arman Suciyan who after working in the workshop Hagop Çak with Misak Toros, fourth generation of the famous Torosyan goldsmith family, went to England for training in the craft of jewelry making.
Santa Maria” by Avedis Kendir.
Santa Maria, approximately one meter long was crafted in almost ten years with gold, silver and precious stones as a 1/100-scale extremely detailed replica of Christopher Columbus’ original ship.
“Harmony Doves” by Sevan Bıçakçı.
4 x 2 cm, height 3.8 cm, gold, silver, diamonds, rough diamonds, and a white amethyst, featuring a reverse intaglio engraving that depicts a pair of doves. After the Great Flood, the dove was the first bird to leave Noah’s Ark and it returned with an olive branch, indicating that life continues. Since then, the dove has become a symbol of love, peace and tranquility. The dagger symbol, the hallmark of Sevan Bıçakçı, is featured as an ornamental element on the ring.
To be able to properly recount how the idea for writing this book came about and to go over the writing process, I would like to touch upon the difficulties in putting together a work that covers such a long period and strives to reflect the very distinct dimensions of Armenian goldsmithery under the Ottomans. The first difficulty was showing the Armenian goldsmiths’ place in the history of Ottoman goldsmithery, based on concrete documents. Since the Armenian goldsmithery tradition was passed down from one generation to the next within a master-apprentice relationship and since this was rarely recorded, the process would predominantly based on personal experience, narratives or oral history. For me, disregarding these experiences, narratives or oral history was out of the question; however, I could not consider this as the final truth in my research. I saw the narratives and oral transmissions as a form of historical reality which were forgotten or partially changed in daily life and tried to unearth traces of them in archival documents and written sources and to compare them.
Although the Ottoman Archives include extremely rich and important documents in this respect, it was clear that this rich source required a certain method and framework for being scanned. We therefore started to work in the archives by the Cevdet classification due to the rich collection and early period historical data it contained. A scan involving only goldsmiths would no doubt be very inadequate. Because of their past as goldsmiths, their relations with goldsmiths and their mediation between goldsmiths and the Ottoman dynasty, the debit and credit documents between Armenian sarrafs and both the Ottoman palace and the higher officials were also scanned. The intertwined development of sarrafs and precious metals opened the way from the beginning for them to work directly as goldsmiths, and guided that us to use documents proving that in most cases sarrafs also functioned as goldsmiths. On the other hand, since the central position of the sarrafs in money matters and their economic activities, which involved the goldsmiths, enabled us to understand the commercial networks we also used documents that would shed light on such relations.
Although not containing information directly related to the manufacture of jewelry, I used some documents because they were indicative of the provisional pawning and money matters, of the legal problems or the relations with the Ottoman court and the administrators. Sources on regulations imposed by the state and the new problems caused by these are included in the book, because they shed light on the works done by the goldsmiths, their working conditions, the difficulties they encountered in the process and the professional relations between them. Another group of documents was making it easier to grasp the institutional structure of the profession of goldsmiths and an important part thereof consisted of the administrative problems of the guild of goldsmiths, internal relations and undoubtedly rivalry around the control of the guild. A particularly important advantage provided by the Ottoman archival material was that it supplied information not only on the activities of the goldsmiths, its conditions and administrative problems, but also on the districts and neighborhoods these activities were conducted in or concentrated on. These documents included extremely valuable information for determining the khans containing goldsmith’s workshops and jewelry stores, thus for mapping the distribution of the goldsmithery and jewelry activities in the city of Istanbul. In the light of such documents, it can be posited that goldsmith workshops were predominantly concentrated in khans in and around the Grand Bazaar and that there were some ateliers and jewelry shops in Galata and Pera with their predominantly non-Muslim and foreign population. Closeness to the Imperial Mint, security concerns arising from the high value of the material used and the crafted goods closely related to the above, and the necessity of performing various steps of the production process in nearby workshops, were some of the main reasons for the concentration of the workshops in given districts.
The Ottoman archives were indisputably an indispensable source for our book; however, one cannot claim that this source has been sufficiently perused to this day. This is why the reader will notice the abundance of Ottoman archival material used in our research, and our detailed examination of them. On the other hand, I would especially like to mention a part of the archival material that excited me very much. I was expecting, already at the very beginning, to find in the archives a profusion of documents on the Duzian (Düzoğlu) family, because of their exceptionally long management of the Imperial Mint. Academic works on the activities and the estate of the family were also reinforcing this prediction. However, the sources went beyond my expectations in shedding light on their actions in goldsmithery and mint management, in determining their relations to the Ottoman court and administrators and in showing their role in the preparation of diplomatic presents of symbolic importance. Besides the Ottoman archival material, the archives of the Armenian Monasteries of Mekhitarist Monks in Venice and Vienna enabled me to see this family’s unique place in the history of Ottoman and Armenian goldsmiths. Additionally, thanks to being able to use Ottoman and Armenian documents as sources supporting and correcting one another, I believe, as far as I know, to have presented the reader with the most detailed family tree of the Duzians and I want to confirm that I am awaiting all new information and documents on the subject with keen interest.
I did not peruse the Ottoman sources to only determine which jewel was crafted by which Armenian master, which sarraf commissioned Armenian goldsmiths to make jewelry for the Ottoman court or which goldsmith had a workshop in which khan. Some of the documents were also providing detailed information on the jewels and jewelry products so crafted. Thus, it was possible to come by such important information for the economic history as the prices of goldsmith’s materials in a given period, the methods of procuring these, the stages of the various processes applied, the division of labor or partnerships established for completing important projects and the wages (master’s fees) of the master goldsmiths. This data is of priceless importance in understanding the composition of the economic value appraised for goldsmithery and jewelry products considered as luxury consumption goods and to grasp how this value was calculated.
On the other hand and although the documents did not contain many details, I tried to find the jewelry mentioned in these sources and besides the pictures and drawings in our archives, to match these with the objects, photos and drawings in those personal archives we could reach. When finding the mentioned work proved impossible, I tried instead to use similar visual material reflecting the same period, distinct features or the style of the master. For instance, despite the existence of information on three cradles made of precious metals and ornamented with precious stones by the Duzians and the absence of pictures of an Ottoman-style cradle, I used the only one on display in the Topkapı Palace Museum.
Each time I fell into despair during the very tiring research and writing stages of the book, I found the energy to continue working thanks to a coincidence, unexpected help or an exciting discovery. Obviously, I shall not be able to name them all, but I will touch upon a few here. The Duzians were a family most researchers are familiar with, because of their long stint at the head of the Imperial Mint and because the work they did for the Ottoman court or the rulers of foreign countries, considered rather expensive for the period, was all recorded and documented. Nevertheless, genealogizing the family in its complete form was difficult and required a months-long struggle with Armenian, Ottoman, Turkish and French sources. I cannot pretend to have created a complete genealogy of the family, yet I can say that I have prepared the most comprehensive family tree and the most detailed breakdown of its activities in goldsmithery. I will have to admit that after this research, finding in a numismatics gallery in Switzerland a so far unknown seal with the Ottoman inscription of “Düz” of the Duzians, I felt as if I was being rewarded for my torments.
I experienced the same feeling during my research on Chief Sword-maker (Kılıççıbaşı) Sarkis Adjemoğlu. Kevork Pamukciyan is the person enriching our knowledge on “Adjemoğlu” whose signed swords are displayed in the Topkapı and Harbiye Military Museums, in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Benaki Museum in Athens, but whose nationality is not indicated in any source. Pamukciyan’s indication of having found Adjemoglu Sarkis’s grave in the Balıklı Armenian Cemetery in 1952 was undoubtedly a call for duty for me. Since I knew from my earlier books that going after marks left by Pamukciyan would not be futile, this information directed me to visit the cemetery. Although doubting the grave would be conserved for such a long time, I went to the Balıklı Armenian Cemetery to find the tombstone of Sarkis Adjemian, called “Chief Sword-maker Adjemoglu Sarkis,” “Chief Sword-maker Serkiz” or “Chief Sword-maker Serkis” in Ottoman documents from the time of Mahmud II and Abdülmecid. I was feeling no strangeness about my work on goldsmithery and jewelry leading me to a cemetery but did not have strong hopes of finding the stone. Learning from the cemetery administration that records were destroyed by the fire during the 6 and 7 September 1955 events aimed at the non-Muslim population of Istanbul and that even if the grave were still within the boundaries of the cemetery, it would not be possible to determine its place drove me to desperation. Not aware of the real name of the chief sword-maker, nor of his “millet” (nation), both the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Benaki Museum of Athens still use his name as “Acem oglu.”
Since the Balıklı Armenian Cemetery also housed various tombstones brought from other Armenian graveyards which had ceased to be used as burial grounds, finding Sarkis Adjemian’s tombstone would not be easy at all. In fact, while absentmindedly wandering in the cemetery after my inconclusive efforts, maybe by a twist of fate or a miraculous sign or even because truth has a habit of emerging sooner or later, I am still not sure which, I found myself a little away from the main alley, in front of an abandoned tombstone, turned upside down. With its inscription not visible, this rather large stone, half buried in the ground, caught my attention. When I saw two hardly discernable swords on the stone which we were only able to lift with a crane, I once again realized how right I was in following Pamukciyan’s footsteps. The pictures of this stone we succeeded in having cleaned and added to the cemetery records are used in our book.
Another subject exciting me is a gun ornamented with jewels crafted under Mahmud I who is rarely mentioned in research although he had a relatively long reign between 1730 and 1754 (it was mentioned that he busied himself with crafting jewels during the twenty-seven years he spent in the harem before being enthroned). To learn that Mahmud I, who according to the Armenian writer and diplomat Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson (Mouradjan Tosunian), author of an interesting book on the Ottoman Empire, named Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman, had a taste in and a talent so sophisticated as to craft “toothpicks of ivory and extraordinary objects of gold,” had gun displayed today in the Walters Art Museum, remarkable with its precious stones and the dagger and writing utensils concealed in partitions carved in its stock, and that its jewelry work was done by Hovhannes Duzian was another source of pleasure for me.12 Together with the said gun, the pistol displayed as part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, with gold filigree on its barrel and stock in a similar style makes one think that both are items from the same set which was another cause of excitement.
There is no doubt that I penned this book because I believed that for a long time Armenian goldsmiths had a particularly important place in the history of Ottoman goldsmithery. However, to be honest, when I started working on the subject I was somewhat concerned about validating, beyond narratives and oral transmission, this belief readily accepted by people familiar with the subject, using concrete proofs, archival material and similar sources. Nevertheless, and after a very short while, I realized that my worries were unfounded and that careful research in the archives and written sources would yield very fruitful results. The need for sharing with larger audiences the joy I felt by discovering the names of hundreds of Armenian goldsmiths not well known until this date, and the details of the works of such masters like clockmaker Şahin and clockmaker Zenberekçioğlu was the most dominant feeling during the whole writing process.
Although I had decided to limit my research to the Ottoman period, the fact that some goldsmith families continued their activities until the first years of the Republic or even until this day led me to extend both the volume and the period covered by the book. Looking back at the last five years, I realize that this period filled by archival research, intense reading, family histories, oral sessions, local and foreign museums and collectors enriched me considerably. I cannot forget the emotional wealth created by the readiness of almost every contacted person and institution to share their knowledge and documents. In light of my family upbringing and the teachings of the Armenian society, one could not expect me not to respond to this generosity. I would really want this book to be seen as a response to everything that I was taught and all that was shared with me. On the other hand, even though extremely rare, I have to admit to having experienced the opposite and felt sorry for those who refused to share their knowledge and documents.
Besides numerous institutions and museums from Turkey and around the world, I would like to thank those people and families for their support and to mention their names: Very Reverend Father Asoghik Garabedian, Very Reverend Father Vahan D. Hovagimian, Very Reverend Father Bedros Manuelian, Very Reverend Father Housig Mardirosian, Very Reverend Father Narek Dadourian, Vahan Der Ghevontian, Anahit Astoian, Vahe Tachjian, Yenal Suci (Suciyan), Avedis Kendir, Ahmet Keskiner, İsa Akbaş, Arto Yeramyan, Garo Doğramaciyan, Rukiye Kuneralp, Sinan Kuneralp, Hülya Bilgi, Nazan Ulutekin, Nur Taviloğlu, Bahattin Öztuncay, Aras Selim Bankoğlu, Osman Serhat Karaman, Fatih Önder, the Kalfayan Family, Viviane Burbo-Buchmann, Yetkin Berberoğlu, Veronica Mahdessian, Büke Uras, Ersu Pekin, Kemal Erhan, Metin Bakır, Mustafa Özkan, Nejat Çuhadaroğlu, Ömer Çalşimşek, Atılgan Bayar, Ayça Iğdır, Müge Erdeniz, Azad Kurtlukaya, Catherine Pinguet, Suzanne van Leeuwen, Xenia Politou, Anna Ballian, François Wyn, Jim and Ana Melikian, Roy Anthony, Harm Stevens, Agata Rutkowska, Ellen Arthur, Rachel Barber, Freya Levett, Vinny Bakrah, Jack Glover Gunn, Giovanni Forti, Astrid Chater, Victor Botchev, Asadour Ebeyan, Yusuf Zengilli, Nelida Azizyan Zengilli, Sirun Sirunyan, Anta Toros, the Pakyüz Family, the Djevahirdjian Family, Arman Erkan, Yetem Çubukçuoğlu, the Cendereci Family, the Büküciyan Family, Misak Oskanyan, Sella Ozanyan, Şadyan Brothers, Vensan Karakoç, Zepür Hanımyan, V. A. Hampikian, Markrit Oruncakciel Atmaca, Harutyun Marutyan, Hugida Kahraman, Huri-Arakel Balyozyan, Birkan-Berkan Karakozu, Alev Taşkın. I am also thankful for the rich archive of drawings belonging to Hayk Kiraz whose family we could not contact but reached through Yenal Suci.
I thank Bahadır Taşkın, Hadiye Cangökçe, Aramis Kalay and Mustafa Yılmaz for sharing their photographs with us. I am grateful to Ali Cevat Akkoyunlu, Merete Bakmand, Anna Turay, Ali Çakmak and Teoman Mat for their help and support as well as their remarks I always enjoyed. I want to thank once again all my colleagues whose names I mentioned in the colophon Finally, I want to thank Yapı Kredi Yayınları in the persons of Tülay Güngen, Aslıhan Dinç, Özgür Akın, M. Sabri Koz, and Levent Altunbek.
The interest awoken by this research of the exploits of Ottoman Armenian goldsmiths during the period stretching from the 16th to the 20th century and the praise received from my friends motivate me to study the world-wide activities of Armenian goldsmiths. I know that such a work would entail more effort and labor than the present book but I feel I have the strength and courage to start a new journey, should I live long enough.
Arsen Yarman